


Pi(e) Day

by bodtlings



Series: Baking Shenanigans [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Bakery AU, HAPPY PI DAY MY FRIENDS HERE'S A THING, M/M, New York City
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-14
Updated: 2015-03-14
Packaged: 2018-03-17 18:34:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3539762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bodtlings/pseuds/bodtlings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Welcome to The Flour Patch!<br/>Today's special of the day is fruit pies!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pi(e) Day

**Author's Note:**

> happy pi day, here's a quick thing!
> 
>  **ALSO** here is some rad art of marco in his [pie gear](http://mattcokun.tumblr.com/post/113630281238/well-arent-i-prepared-i-didnt-even-know-there) courtesy of my darling [matt](http://mattcokun.tumblr.com/) <3

Weekend hours at the bakery go by much faster than during the week, Eren, Armin, and Marco find out over the months; they close at 6pm instead of 9, the rushes aren’t so frequent, and everyone decides that noon is the perfect time to ambush the bakery and be civil for the rest of the day.

Today is a different day for Marco.

Today is Pie Day.

Marco doesn’t remember where he heard it from or what it’s about, but he heard “pie” and “day” in the same sentence, and that was enough evidence for him to conclude that this so-called “pie day” was just a national holiday for pies that he’d never heard of before. Truly a disgrace on his part for not knowing of such an important event.

Today is different. Today, Marco is going to appreciate the pies. Today, Marco is going to bake as many pies as he and his boys could crank out together. _Today_ , Marco was going to give pies the appreciation and attention and love that they deserve.

Marco woke up this morning with much more energy than he usually does at such an ungodly hour. He follows his daily schedule - exercises, shower, breakfast, and down to the bakery - but because of the special occasion, he adds something new to the mix.

After smoothing out the non-existent wrinkles of his shirt and tightening his belt buckle one loop tighter, Marco slaps his cheeks and walks downstairs, muttering “Pie day, pie day, pie day,” as he descends the stairs.

This morning, Saturday, March 14, the trio go about their routine as always - Eren and Armin hop on the 3:30am train to Penn Station and they walk the eleven blocks to the bakery. It’s more of Eren walking and pulling along Armin, who is only ever awake when he has to be, and once they reach the back door of their second home, Armin rests his head on Eren’s shoulder and tries not to doze off outside.

Marco is greeted with a yawn from a disheveled-looking Armin, a small wave from a tired Eren, and a small breeze coming through the doorframe. It’s welcome, a small chill that just aids to Marco’s enthusiasm about the day, and he knows that the sun will shine and warm up the ground and there will be _pies_ today. So many pies, he can hardly wait.

“Morning guys! Come on in,” Marco chirps, right hand outstretched to the horizontal hallway behind him. “I wanted to talk about something with you both before you go to nap Armin, is that okay?”

Armin, too tired to even fully open his eyes and hair in a disarrayed ponytail, hides a yawn behind the back of his hand and nods his head. Eren places his palm on the small of Armin’s back, ushering him forward and trying not to smile at his still-sleepy boyfriend.

It’s not until the back door is locked and the three of them are in the kitchen that Eren actually notices Marco’s apparel, waking up with the disbelief that floods him.

“Uh...Marco?”

Marco turns around from his work station, having seen a stray cord unplugged and plugging it into its rightful socket, and turns back to Eren to see that he looks part confused and part trying not to laugh. “Hmm?”

“Uhm,” Eren clears his throat, doing a horrible job at being subtle in slipping a laugh into his fake cough. “What, uh... whatcha wearin’ there, buddy?”

Marco’s smile is so bright it’s like a lighthouse shining onto a black sea. He stretches both hands out beside him as far as they’ll go, puffing his chest and saying with more excitement than is probably necessary for near 4:30am, “Happy Pie Day!”

The bakery is quiet. The bakery is so eerily silent that Marco can hear the hiss of the ovens, the whining of a city bus opening its doors out on the street, can hear the clicks of heels against the pavement. Armin’s eyes are opening at the pace that a snail travels, and once his eyes are a little more than halfway exposed, he looks Marco up and down, not once, not twice, but three times to make sure what he’s seeing is well and truly real.

Eren is a little speechless, but then again, speech was never his strongest attribute. Still, he’s having a rather tough time breaking it to his best friend/boss that what he’s wearing isn’t exactly work appropriate or...nice, for that matter.

Marco’s wearing his usual white pants and shoes, but his normally white shirt has a big, dripping slice of blueberry pie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream sitting on the crust and the words “Love me some Pi!” rainbowed over the top. When Marco had received the shirt in the mail last week, he was a little disappointed that they left out the “e” at the end of “pi”, so he took a sharpie and wrote it in himself.

Aside from the t-shirt, Marco’s also wearing pie-covered shoelaces and has a lanyard dangling from his keys with, surprise, pies decorating the entire thing.

It’s entirely cheesy and Marco knows it, but he’s so happy that it pains the two boys gaping at the human being they, for some reason, love.

“Well? Aren’t I prepared? I didn’t even know there was a national pie day, isn’t this exciting?!”

Armin’s head drops, his chin resting against his chest, and he closes his eyes as he whispers, “Oh, Marco.”

Eren, having absolutely no tact or filter for consideration, promptly begins to cackle. His laughter is booming throughout the bakery, the music not turned on yet and not a customer in sight until opening for another hour or so, and Eren is entirely in stitches. He’s clutching at his sides, crouching over so his knees hit the floured floor and he howls with laughter he, apparently, has the inability to contain.

“M-Marco, I can’t breathe, oh God I can’t -”

Armin walks over, a hand tucking fly-away strands of blonde hair that fell out of his ponytail behind his ear as his other rests heavily on Marco’s shoulder. “Marco, you might want to sit down for this. It might hurt a little.”

“What?” Marco’s smile falls a little, head tilting to the side and eyebrows raising in confusion. Eren is of no help whatsoever, still maniacally laughing at Marco’s seemingly naïveté take on pi day.

Armin slides the overturned bucket turned makeshift chair under Marco’s knees and has him sit down, both hands now on his shoulder as if relaying to him the gravest of news. “Marco, there’s no national baking holiday for pies, it doesn’t exist - pi day is in reference to a mathematical joke. You don’t know of pi in math?” Marco shakes his head, frown in full swing and looking up at Armin with the absolute _worst_ kicked puppy face.

Sighing and crouching so he’s leaning on his haunches, Armin places both hands on Marco’s knees. “There’s a term called pi in math, but it’s spelled “p-i”. The first three numbers of it are three point one four, and since today is March 14th, everyone calls it pi day as a joke to the mathematical sequence. I’m so sorry, Marco.”

He’d be lying if he wasn’t a little hurt - Marco _did_ buy all of his pie apparel for this specific day. But instead of getting down about wasting money on his super sweet new gear, Marco cheers up immediately and stands from his bucket with new-found vigor.

“That’s okay! I don’t need a national pie holiday. We’ll just make one in the bakery!”

Eren’s laughter has finally subsided and he’s wiping at his eyes when his head snaps up at Marco’s exclamation. “We’re doing _what_ now?”

“You heard me,” Marco says, turning around and putting  on all the mixers and walking to the corner pantry closet of the kitchen. “Armin you can still take your nap if you want, but Eren, come here and help me out, yeah?”

Eren looks to Armin, squinting hard and muttering through pouty lips, “What have you done.”

“I didn’t do anything! _I_ wasn’t the one who said today was dedicated to a math joke instead of to a pastry.”

“Eren!”

“Coming, coming! Go nap, you traitor.” Eren kisses Armin’s cheek as he’s yawning again, waving behind him as he scampers off the pantry in time to stop a metal bowl from falling on Marco’s head.

The two emerge from the pantry, heaps of butter, fresh fruit, and baking ingredients at the ready overflowing from their clutches. “If there’s no pie holiday, we’ll simply host our own.”

While Armin had slept for the remaining hour and fifteen minutes before he was due back to the land of the living, Marco and Eren made twenty-six pies and counting; blueberry, apple, cherry, boysenberry, every fruit he could use. Marco had instructed Eren to go write on the chalkboard outside whatever pie joke he could think of. Eren, after serious, serious contemplation as this was a serious matter, came up with, _“What's the best thing to put into a pie? Your teeth! Happy Pi(e) Day!”_

What normally would have been a relatively slow weekend at the bakery became a bustling one; whole pies and slices of pies and pie mentions were contagious, and the entire bakery smelled of blueberries and caramelized apples and flaky crust baked to perfection. Truthfully, Marco does still feel a little cheated that there isn’t an actual holiday dedicated to pies, but taking advantage of the situation and turning it into something of his own for the profession he loves works just as well, especially when he closes a little earlier to share a blueberry pie with his best friends.

 

 


End file.
